TACOMA, Wash. — A prominent farm worker activist detained in March by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will self-deport to Mexico to get out of the Northwest Detention Center, his attorney announced Monday. 

Alfredo "Lelo" Juarez's lawyer, Larkin VanDerhoef, said Juarez could not bear to be inside the detention facility any longer. Applying for asylum would have meant weeks or months more in detention while he waited for the application to be processed. 

Juarez requested an immigration judge Monday to voluntarily depart to Mexico. His request was granted. VanDerhoef said Juarez should be released next week. 

"It's not the outcome we wanted, it is what we asked for today," VanDerhoef said. "So in some ways, he was able to decide how the process ended."

Juarez was detained four months ago when he was pulled over by ICE agents. Witnesses said they smashed his window and pulled Juarez out of his car in front of his wife. He was driving his wife to work.

In a statement, an ICE spokesperson told KING 5 that Juarez is a citizen of Mexico who was ordered by an immigration judge March 27, 2018, to be removed from the country.

ICE said its agency arrested him after he "refused to comply with lawful commands to exit the vehicle he was occupying at the time of the arrest."

Supporters alleged Juarez was arrested as a result of his activism. Juarez has been outspoken about farm worker pay and organized within his community for farm worker justice.

Ten years ago, when he was a teenager, Bellingham police pulled Juarez over for driving the wrong way on a one-way street in his parents' car without a license. 

He admitted he was undocumented, but lied to police about his age, saying he was 18 when he was 15.

That decade-old law enforcement encounter was part of why Juarez was detained in March.

KING 5 found no other criminal activity on Juarez's record. His sister, Alea Juarez, said it hurts to watch the "American dream" they worked so hard to achieve come to an end.

"Our parents sacrificed so much to give us an opportunity," Alea Juarez said. "They wanted us to have the American dream, but it seems that not many want us to have that because of our skin color.

Alea Juarez said she is happy her brother made his own decision, and she expects to go see him soon in Mexico. 

The Northwest Detention Center is run by a private company, The GEO Group, that contracts with the federal government. Detainees have complained of overcrowding, poor medical and sanitary conditions at the facility for years.